IntroductionThe following is a rough sketch of my system for achieving success in law school. I emphasize the word “my” because what works for me will not necessarily work for everyone, so take my advice with a grain of salt. The purpose for this guide is to help students who are trying to learn how to get ahead in law school. The guide is mostly geared toward 0Ls and 1Ls, however my system has not changed and the guide is generally applicable to upperclassmen as well. If you just want to skim, I suggest at least reading the parts about reading ahead and taking practice exams. These were the two things that helped me more than anything.

Also, this is not a guide to life, as so many of these 1L guides essentially are. It's a guide to getting good grades in law school. One of the main points of my first section (Mentality) is that you shouldn't waste your energy on anything that isn't geared toward writing a good exam. I don't mean to encourage anybody to divert energy away from their private life. What I am trying to encourage is to divert the energy you may otherwise waste on tedious law school-related pitfalls toward getting good grades. This guide is about study habits and techniques, not about how to cope with being a law student.

This system has certainly treated me well. I am currently a 2L who is a top 10% student at a T14 with a CALI Award to boot. That’s not to say that everything has gone perfectly. I’m top 10%, not a 4.0. There are certainly guides written by students who have more impressive GPAs than mine, but I believe in my system, and, as Billy Madison said “it was tough for me so back off!” Anyway, I think most students coming into 1L would happily trade places with me, so, without further ado, here is my guide to success in law school.

I. A Word On Mentality - Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize

One of the most important hurdles to succeeding in law school is understanding exactly what ”succeeding in law school” means. Success means getting good grades. Getting good grades means doing well on your exams. Plain and simple. Sure, it’s nice to have a professor tell you “good point” when you wax poetic about how New Deal politics may have influenced the Court in some since-overturned Commerce Clause case. Sure it’s nice to be able to perfectly recite every factual detail of International Shoe. But at the end of the day, if you want to do well in law school, you must remember: every single thing you do for a law school class should be part of your preparation to write a good exam in December/May.

In that vein, some things to remember:1. Exam grading is blind. If you get an A, it’s because your professor thought “Exam Number 8675309” hit on the most issues and developed the best arguments, not because she is rewarding you for reciting how many stops were left before Penn Station in Palsgraf v. LIRR when you covered it back in September.

2. You are preparing for your professor’s exam: Your cousin’s outline from some other professor, at some other school, using some other textbook is not going to give you an edge. Make sure you understand what your professor is looking for on her exam. Although most professors generally cover the same cases and teach the same principles as each other, make sure you are preparing to give your specific professor what she wants on the exam.

3. Don’t feel obligated to participate in extracurriculars (especially in 1L): There are so many distractions in law school, especially during 1L and especially during your first semester. Don’t worry about signing up for Barbri, or being a Barbri rep. Don’t worry about filling the NYS pro bono requirement. Don’t worry about moot court, or even networking. Not to say that these things are of no value, but focusing on getting good grades is almost always more important. At least at OCI, employers are much more interested in seeing good grades than anything else. Employers know that law school is rigorous (especially 1L) and will not hold it against you if your only extracurricular is your journal (which you don’t compete for until after 1L anyway).

4. Keep your eyes on the prize: Not to belabor the point, but this should be your mantra. Don’t worry about sounding smart in class. Don’t worry if your professor doesn’t know your name. Just worry about writing a good exam. When considering doing something for class, always ask yourself: how will this help me get an A? Say you’re considering going to office hours: Are you considering going because you want to schmooze the professor, or, are you considering going because it will help you learn the material and apply it on the test? Say you’re bogged down in the facts of a case: Are you concentrating on the facts so that you can recite them if cold called, or, are you concentrating on the facts so that you can better understand what’s going on in the case? If you answered the former to either question, move on and do something productive. Eyes on the prize.

II. What to Do During the Bulk of the Semester

A. Look Over Practice Tests Early

Because the entirety of your grade depends on your performance on the exam, it’s a good idea to look at past exams early so that you know what you’re preparing for. Later in the semester you will become intimately familiar with how your professor tests the material. Early on, it is a good idea to at least glance through some past exams and some model responses. For example, it helps to know whether your professor tests on policy issues, how many questions she asks, whether there is any multiple choice, whether there’s a time crunch, whether she wants citations to cases and code provisions, whether she wants you to argue for the court to adopt new rules, whether she wants you to apply the law as it used to be rather than its current state, etc. Knowing these things will subtly affect the way you approach your semester and will help to focus your studying on an end goal. If you blow off looking over practice tests early, it won’t kill you, but it’s a worthwhile exercise.

B. What Materials to Use: A Guide to Supplements, Treatises and Casebooks

i. Generally: There is a lot of advice out there about buying and studying from supplements. First of all, I think there’s a general principal to keep in mind regarding study aids: it’s not that hard to grasp the principals taught in your law school classes. If you study strictly from a casebook, strictly from a supplement, or study from both, you are bound to “get it” eventually. 80% of your class is going to understand the law and be able to follow class discussions. The other 20% is either lazy or not cut out for legal thinking. The real key to law school success comes not from grasping the basics, but from putting them in a framework for the exam. Because your casebook should be sufficient on its own, when considering using a supplement, you should be asking yourself whether the supplement will help you understand the law better and/or faster than the casebook would alone.

ii. Substitutes: Some “supplements” are not really supplements, but rather they are substitutes for your casebook (these are the 500-1,000+ page hornbooks, not the E&E or Emanuel’s supplements). Whether or not you should buy and use a substitute largely depends on your professor and the class. Generally, if your casebook’s author also wrote his own hornbook, you may want to cautiously consider using the hornbook as a substitute for the casebook. For example, if you are assigned Freer’s Civ Pro casebook, I would suggest getting his treatise. That particular supplement follows the casebook chapter by chapter, and spells out what you need to take away from each case much better than the casebook does itself. For most other classes, however, there likely won’t be a supplement that is quite on point. If there is no hornbook out there by the author of your casebook, I would be very wary about completely substituting hornbook reading for casebook reading. Some hornbooks are good crutches (not total substitutes), and are universally well regarded. For example, Chemerinsky’s Con Law treatise is absolute gold. I used Chemerinsky to fill in gaps and crystalize what I read in the casebook. Because Chemerinsky did not write my casebook, however, I did not use that treatise as a complete substitute. I would generally be hesitant to completely substitute a hornbook for your casebook, but there are certainly classes out there for which this is the right move.

iii. True Supplements: There are also supplements that are not meant to completely substitute casebook reading. I am talking mostly about E&E and Emanuel’s. I suggest trying these supplements out during 1L and seeing if they work for you. I had the Emanuel’s supplement for both Torts and Contracts and they both really helped. After doing my casebook readings, I would go through the correlating section in Emanuel’s and take brief notes (I would spend no more than 30 minutes doing this for each class session’s readings). Taking notes from these supplements helps in two ways. First, it fills in any gaps in your casebook notes. Second, because these supplements give you the black-letter law, they can help you determine what you should be getting out of your casebook readings. At the end of the semester, when you outline, you are going to parse through all of your notes and try to extract what is actually important. Having the black letter law sitting below your more detailed casebook notes helps you decide what should go into your outline, and what can be ignored. These supplements are helpful, and I would suggest at least trying them out.

There are also the case-brief supplements. These are the supplements that give a quick, one to two page brief for all the cases in your casebook, and are usually keyed to specific casebooks. I definitely recommend picking these up to use as crutches, or glancing through a case brief site online when necessary if you don’t want to spend the money. They can be great tools for grasping detailed facts and complicated holdings. When you start reading through an opinion just to find yourself asking, “wait, WTF is going on in this case?” I’d suggest glancing through a brief to get a grasp on what is going on, and then turning back to your reading with a more focused eye.

C. Note-Taking

i. Highlighting: One of the biggest mistakes I see law students make is over-highlighting, and taking all their notes in the margins of their casebook. I never highlight. I don’t see the point, and it does nothing for me. The concept of marking up a casebook is completely foreign to me, and I don’t see how it can translate into writing a good exam. I just don’t get it and strongly discourage it, but to each his own.

ii. Casebook Notes: What I do encourage, is taking notes in Microsoft Word. For every class, by the end of the semester I will have about 100-150 pages of notes in a Notebook-layout Word document. Each case will have bullet points, sub-bullet-points, sub-sub-bullet points and so on. Because of this format, the notes aren’t as extensive as 150 pages may initially seem.

Below the name of the case, I will include brief summary of the facts of each case. After the brief facts I will bullet the name of the judge writing the majority opinion, and sub-bullet my notes on his argument. As I read through the opinion, I will extract what I think is important, and either summarize it, or, if appropriate, transcribe a direct quote from the opinion. The bulk of my notes are on the opinion itself (not the facts). The point of taking notes this way is so that I can go back later (when outlining) read through my notes for each case, and extract what I need to know for the exam. Not all of my bullet points will be relevant, but it is impossible to tell exactly what to take from a case until after you have read it. It is better to be over-inclusive and hash out what is important later, than to be under-inclusive and not have everything you may need. When I go back and outline, it becomes clear what to take from my notes and what the general thrust of the opinion is.

Some people sit in class, furiously hammering at their keyboard, taking down everything the professor says. I am not one of those people. I often wonder to myself: what are those people typing? What could they possibly be getting out of the professor’s 20-minute tangent, or her 15-minute anecdote? Sometimes, I think most of what your average law student does is done out of fear and not out of logic. To me, class is about learning, not transcribing. It’s about listening, not hearing. If the professor says something important, you’ll know it, and you’ll take it down. Otherwise, don’t worry too much about taking notes in class.Class sessions serve two purposes for me:

First, class sessions are meant to help you actually learn the material. By listening to the professor and following the class discussion, class should help cement and clarify what you’ve read. In this sense, class serves a similar function to reading through supplements. Some of the better professors can really help explain what you’ve read. I find that when I get a good professor I end up supplementing my casebook notes with little tidbits picked up from class. Often a professor will say, “what I want you to take out of this case, is X,” or a professor will sketch out some sort of framework, or black letter rule on the blackboard. This is what you should be copying down and adding to your casebook notes. Some professors, on the other hand, are not very good teachers. Brilliant and accomplished as they may be, some professors are just bad communicators of information. For those types of professors, don’t worry if you don’t take many notes during class. Think of class as another avenue to learn the material. If you just aren’t getting much out of it, focus on your casebook reading and your supplements and lower your expectations for class. Personally, I actually prefer a poor teacher. When everybody else is lost and confused, foolishly relying on unclear lectures to learn the material, I’m searching for other avenues. Remember, law school is graded on a curve. If everybody else is struggling with the tools they’re given, rely on a different tool.

Second, you should use class sessions to try to determine what your specific professor wants on the exam. If a professor takes a unique view on an area of law, focuses disproportionately on one case or one area of law, specifically mentions that she disagrees with an opinion, or even explicitly states that something will or will not be on the exam, take note. Remember, you are preparing to give this specific professor what she wants on her exam. If she gives any hint as to what will be tested, or how she wants you to view a case or area of law, it is important to keep that in mind.

E. Reading Ahead

My number one most important piece of advice is to read ahead. This, hands down, allowed me to succeed more than any other strategy. Every semester is approximately 13 weeks. For most classes, you are given the syllabus ahead of time and will know what your assignments are going to be weeks in advance. If you finish your 13 weeks worth of readings in 11 weeks, that gives you two extra weeks of outlining and taking practice tests. And it’s not that hard to do. Finishing 1-2 weeks early comes down to about one extra reading per week. If you properly budget your time, and make a conscious effort to get through readings with some haste, you can easily create two invaluable weeks of outlining and practice testing for yourself. Skip the office hours, skip the guest speaker, and skip dwelling on every fact and facet of every case. Focus on getting through your readings quickly and you will have more time than anyone else to do your real studying when it counts.

One hour studying in late November is about as valuable as ten hours studying in September. During finals week every semester, my peers are furiously sorting through their notes, trying to assemble some sort of outline and put their classes into some sort of framework. They are just starting to think about the exam for the first time. While they are doing that, I have already finished my outlines, know the material like the back of my hand, and am focusing on taking practice tests, so that I’m best able to give the professor what she wants. Read ahead. You won’t regret it.

III. Crunch Time

It’s mid-November, you’ve just finished all your readings (if you’ve followed my advice), and now you have three weeks to prepare for finals. So, what next?

A. Outlining

i. Generally: Remember those 150 pages of notes you took for each class throughout the semester? Here’s where it comes in handy. Most of your peers at this point (or more realistically two weeks after this point) will be scrambling to make something like what you already have. They will be piecing together their class notes, casebook notes, highlights, margin notes, and other people’s outlines to create some huge mega-outline similar to what you already have. Whereas your peers are putting it all together, you will be cutting it all down. You will be making a 10-15 page attack outline purely geared toward use on the test. This outline will be easy to read, brief, and will be structured in such a way that it can be applied directly onto the test. On the test, other students will have to scour through their 100 page outlines, or have no outline at all. You, on the other hand, will have a 10-15 page, easily navigable outline specifically geared to attack any question on the test.

ii. Materials: What will you use to construct your outline? First of all, you will primarily be relying on your 150 pages of notes to create your outline. Think of the outline as an extremely compressed version of your notes. To create your outline you will go through your notes and extract what is important, and what will apply to the test. Whereas a case in your notes may take up one full page, that same case will boil down to one-two sentences in your outline.

This is also the one and only time I suggest using other people’s notes/outlines. Most schools have outline banks for every class, and hopefully have notes/outlines available for your specific professor. You also may have friends in your class that took detailed notes and are willing to share them. Although you are primarily relying on the notes you took from the casebook, you should have a few sets of alternative outlines at the ready so that you can fill in any blanks left by your notes when constructing your attack outline.

iii. The Process: The first step in outlining is to read through your notes, as well as your supplemental outlines, in order to determine the individual units of the course. You may also want to refer to the syllabus to see if your professor structured the course in a specific way. Begin to divide the class into distinct units. For example, I segmented Torts into the following units: Duty, Breach, Causation, Damages, Negligence Defenses, Strict Liability/Products Liability, Intentional Torts, Vicarious Liability, and Insurance/Workers Compensation.

The next step is to go through your notes and begin outlining each unit. As you go through the cases in your notes, you are going to flesh out topics within each unit, and maybe even subtopics within those topics. For example, under Damages I have two topics: Compensatory Damages and Punitive Damages. Under Compensatory Damages, I have a few subtopics, including: Pain and Suffering Damages, Loss of Enjoyment of Life, Damages in the Event of Death, and the Collateral Source Rule. Finally, under each subtopic, I will outline the important considerations to apply on the test. This is the meat of my outline and usually consists of some combination of the black letter rule, the reasoning for that rule, specific factors to consider in applying that rule, and any other relevant considerations.

Outlining in this way serves two purposes. First of all, it gives you a great framework to apply to the test. When you spot an issue on the test, you will have a brief, straightforward outline from which you can look up the rule quickly translate that rule into an exam response. Second of all, by thinking through the course, rereading the material, and putting each case and each rule into such a framework, you will end up knowing the material as well as anyone in the class, and you will have fully compartmentalized your framework. By the time the test comes around, you will barely even have to look at your outline because you already have everything mapped out in your head.

B. Practice Tests

Once your outlines are done, it’s time to take practice tests. A lot of people will tell you not to take full practice tests. I strongly disagree, but again, to each his own. I make a point to take several full-length practice exams, fully developing my answers. I think that taking full-length practice exams is essential in preparing yourself for an exam. A professor will generally give tests in the same format year after year, giving the same number of questions and designing her questions the same way every year. Professors often have word limits, page limits, allot various point totals, and have varying time constraints. In order to truly master an exam, you have to be comfortable with your professor’s exam format. You do not want to get into the test, go way over the professor’s 1,000 word limit, and have to waste time cutting down half of your answer to Question 1 before moving on to Question 2. Nor do you want to get into the exam and spend 2 hours on a 1-hour question. By taking practice tests, you will have worked out these kinks and will know exactly how to strategize your approach to avoid these concerns. You will also figure out the best strategy for attacking the exam (for example, you will figure out how many times you should read through the questions before answering them, how extensively you should outline before starting to answer a question, and so on).

Think about exams like you would the LSAT. How much better at the LSAT did you become with practice? You may have started in the 150s, worked your way into the 160s and finally mastered the art of the LSAT so as to consistently score in the 170s. A law school test is no different. After finishing your outline, you will have all the tools to do well. In order to use these tools to their fullest extent, however, you will need practice, and that practice can only come from taking practice tests.

You will also want to take full practice tests so that you know where you stand, and figure out how to improve. Was there an issue you missed? Why did you miss it and how can you fix that error? Did you misread the question? Perhaps you should consider reading the question through twice on the real thing instead of just once. Did you have a lot of time left over? Perhaps on the real thing you can afford to develop your answers a little more. Nobody executes anything perfectly on their first attempt. Remember your first time driving a car? After taking a few practice exams you will find your weaknesses, correct them, and be much better off for the real thing. With how tight law school curves are, this can easily be the difference between a B+ and an A.

Finally, you will want to compare your answer with the model answer, and study the model answer so that your next exam response can be more like it. From the model answer you can gauge exactly what your professor is looking for. When reading the model answer look not only for substance, but for form as well. Does the professor want you to organize each response by issue? Does the professor want direct citations? Does the professor want you to argue BOTH SIDES? Does the professor want novel arguments? You can tell a lot from the model answer and should study it very closely.

IV. Taking your exam

It’s test day! All your hard work is ready to pay off. At this point you will have fully grasped all the material, created an attack outline, and practiced applying the material by taking your professor’s past exams. Other than the obvious “get a good night’s sleep” and “show up early and on time,” there’s not that much more advice to give. At least, other than this: don’t worry about what everybody else is doing. For most tests, you’re going to want to read through the fact pattern a few times and then sketch an outline to your answer before you start. For in class exams, you will inevitably hear others start hammering at their keyboards while you are still outlining. Don’t panic! Stick to your plan, get in the zone, and execute. You have the tools, you have the ability, and you’ve put in the practice. Good luck!

100% agree with almost everything here, especially the way you take notes (I also never made a single mark in my case books, and the page you posted looks like it could have come directly out of my reading notes) and approach class meetings. I used the traditional "highlight everything under the sun and frantically take notes during class" approach first semester 1L and I was a bit disappointed after ending up slightly above median. After changing to this approach, I killed it every other semester and also graduated top 10%.

One suggestion that gave me pause, though, was reading ahead. Maybe this is just a particular feature of how I learn, but the few times that I tried reading ahead, I wouldn't synthesize the information as well during class discussion because the reading wasn't as fresh in my mind. I would actually understand the material better and retain it more if I read the material right before class. Obviously this doesn't give you the extra week or two to prep for exams, but I also found that I performed better when my prep for a class was condensed into two or three days of intense studying right before the exam. The exams where I only spent two days eating, sleeping, and breathing the subject always received better grades than the exams where I would draw out my prep into a more relaxed week. Again, maybe that's just how I learn (and one downside that I've noticed is that I seemed to forget the material immediately after the exams with shorter prep time; I'm clerking for a district court judge, and I struggle to remember some basic stuff about evidence even after booking the class), but it's another approach.

nevdash wrote:100% agree with almost everything here, especially the way you take notes (I also never made a single mark in my case books, and the page you posted looks like it could have come directly out of my reading notes) and approach class meetings. I used the traditional "highlight everything under the sun and frantically take notes during class" approach first semester 1L and I was a bit disappointed after ending up slightly above median. After changing to this approach, I killed it every other semester and also graduated top 10%.

One suggestion that gave me pause, though, was reading ahead. Maybe this is just a particular feature of how I learn, but the few times that I tried reading ahead, I wouldn't synthesize the information as well during class discussion because the reading wasn't as fresh in my mind. I would actually understand the material better and retain it more if I read the material right before class. Obviously this doesn't give you the extra week or two to prep for exams, but I also found that I performed better when my prep for a class was condensed into two or three days of intense studying right before the exam. The exams where I only spent two days eating, sleeping, and breathing the subject always received better grades than the exams where I would draw out my prep into a more relaxed week. Again, maybe that's just how I learn (and one downside that I've noticed is that I seemed to forget the material immediately after the exams with shorter prep time; I'm clerking for a district court judge, and I struggle to remember some basic stuff about evidence even after booking the class), but it's another approach.

Good post.

Yeah, the biggest pitfall with reading ahead is that the material may not be as fresh as it would be had you read it the night before class. I try to cope with this by giving my notes a quick read through before class (15-20ish minutes). I think you'd be surprised how much comes back to you just by rereading your notes. This is another reason to take notes in a Word doc rather than highlight (imho). I can't imagine how you'd go about reacquainting yourself with the material had you spent all your time highlighting and writing in the margins. Taking detailed notes in a word doc, on the other hand, lends itself to pain free rereading before class.

Of course, there's no substitute for having the material completely fresh in your head.

Another strategy may be to first read way ahead in one class, while you stay current in your others. Then, once you finish the class you initially read ahead in, you can start to get ahead in your other classes. For example, because my Torts readings were short and straightforward, I chose to get way ahead in Torts early in the semester. Torts, in my opinion, is the most straightforward, easy to grasp class in 1L. I chose to get way ahead in Torts early on, because I knew I'd still be able to follow the lectures even if we were discussing something I'd read weeks ago. Once I finished Torts, I then was easily able to race through the rest of my readings for my other classes (b/c my two Torts readings per week were already taken care of). But for all my other classes, I didn't accelerate until halfway through the semester. This way, I was able to keep the readings fresh in my head for the classes that I found lecture most important. By the time I accelerated in these classes, I already had the foundation of the course under my belt and could feel a bit more comfortable about getting ahead. This definitely didn't hurt me in Torts as I got an A in the class.

At the end of the day though, I really think the benefit of those extra few weeks to prepare for finals far outweighs the marginal detriment of not having the readings completely fresh in your head during lecture. You're going to have supplements, your friends notes, and outlines from the school's outline bank to fill in anything that you missed in lecture or missed in your reading. Time, on the other hand, is your most precious commodity.

Also, you brought up the fact that eating, sleeping and breathing the class for a few days is better than having a relaxed week leading up to exams. I totally agree. My response would be that cramming and reading ahead don't have to be mutually exclusive. I mostly give myself extra time so that I can fully develop my outlines. The few nights before the test, however, I am absolutely eating, sleeping and breathing the test by doing study groups, taking tons of practice tests, reading, re-reading, and editing my outline, and so on. I think the biggest difference is that a cram session for most students amounts to a lot of learning and compartmentalizing (through outlining and reading notes) whereas my cram session is mostly drilling (by taking practice tests).